


The Winchester Ark

by suqua (cwsunrise)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AND CONDORS OH MY!, Angelic weapons, Balthazar being rude, Destiel is hinted toward about as much as the show does, Gen, Lions, Noah's Ark, Penguins, season six
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-13
Updated: 2013-07-13
Packaged: 2017-12-19 08:32:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/881670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cwsunrise/pseuds/suqua
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean doesn't give a damn, they aren't carrying two of every animal in his baby and there definitely isn't going to be a flood!</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Winchester Ark

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a post on tumblr, long ago. Set in season six's angelic weapons arc.

The Impala’s driver door slams closed but Sam goes still with his hand poised about to close the passenger side.

“…Dean?”

“Yeah, Sammy?”

“I. There. Uh.” Sam doesn’t move. “Lions?”

“What?”

Sam speaks through clenched teeth, staring at the big cats watching him entirely too few feet away. “There are. Lions.”

When Dean doesn’t answer that time, Sam starts to feel a lot more nervous. “Dean! Lions! Help?”

Dean would normally leap to help his brother but instead he finds himself open-mouthed and staring down a couple of emperor penguins.

When Dean finally finds his voice it’s something along the lines of, “Uh?” and Sam makes a high pitched noise.

The penguins probably shouldn’t seem so menacing, Dean’s seen commercials for Happy Feet and even seen some documentaries on long sleepless nights. They’re looking at him intently and one waddles forward and peers behind him.

Sam makes a high-pitched noise on his side but he’s entirely too distracted because the penguin is circling around him. It nips at the door handle of the Impala and despite himself, Dean protests. “Hey! Buddy! No!”

The penguin nips at Dean’s hand next and Dean flinches and steps away. The other one comes over, a little shorter than the first and they both inspect the door.

“What the hell…?” Dean breathes, frowning at the animals as he rounds the front of the car. “Sammy, there’s a couple of-“ He freezes when he looks over. “Oh. Right.”

Standing still as a stone, Sam’s mouth was pressed tightly closed and his eyes were incredibly wide. A very large, bushy-maned lion was sitting on the ground and breathing on the side of Sam’s face, sniffing him in and rustling his hair around as he breathed out. The lioness was sniffing at the leather seat of the car.

“Oh no,” Dean says, bringing a hand up to his mouth. “Please no. No. No-!”

She leaps inside and he makes a quiet groan. Sam makes another distressed noise as the lion licks the side of his face. “She’s in my car, Sammy!”

The lioness settles across the entire front seat, one leg and tail sticking out of the passenger seat.

 They stand there for probably ten minutes, the penguins getting more and more frustrated at being unable to get the driver side door open. In that time, Dean notices a pair of what he thinks are gazelle approach. “Wait, I’ve seen this on Animal Planet. Lion and gazelle don’t mix,” he said, looking between them.

 “I... I’d really prefer him going after the gazelle, Dean,” Sam said through his teeth, trying hard not to flinch as the male lion catches a bit of his jeans in his teeth.

 “Yeah. Uh, so. Any idea why these things are showin uUUPP- what the hell is-” Dean gasps, a flurry of feathers close in his peripheral vision causing him to lurch away. A giant, freaking giant bird soars past and lands on the roof. There’s another one shortly after. “Not...not the paint!”

 The gazelle goes right up to the door, paying no mind to the lion, and noses inside. The lioness watches it with a bored expression, curling up to sleep. “Dean,” Sam growls, “Do something. Call Cas, maybe this is...Something. Do something!”

 “Okay, just...Hold on,” Dean said, trying really hard not to stare at the claws of the giant bird gripping the frame of the open car door. He closes his eyes and prays as loudly as he can.

_Dear Castiel, there is some weird crap happening down here and they are on my car. MY CAR, do you understand? I pray you get your ass over here and help me out because MY CAR MY CAR MY CAR MY CAR._

 Sure enough, a faint swish of feathers and Castiel appears a few feet away. “You didn’t need to yell,” he says, looking at Dean crossly before looking over at the car. “There is a lioness in the front seat.”

 Dean grit his teeth. “Yeah, I can see that. There’s also a lion holding Sam hostage, two nippy penguin _dicks_ , a giant freakin’ bird-”

 “That is a California Condor, a critically endangered bird,” Castiel supplies, looking the bird over with fascination a moment before looking toward a cluster of trees in the distance. “I can hear his mate nearby.”

 “Whatever! What the hell is going on here, there’s-” A gazelle comes from Dean’s left and he jumps, hands itching to go for a knife or something. “...What the hell is happening, here?”

 Castiel is looking around the area, scanning it and his brow was furrowed. “This area is strange,” he said before looking back at the Impala. “It’s as though your car... she is a beacon calling these animals to come. It is a holy interference.”

 He steps forward, toward Sam and the lion.  Sam looks distressed as hell. Castiel doesn’t pay much mind, hand rising and petting through the lion’s mane lightly before going around him and peering inside the car. “Sam, he is not going to eat you. You may move,” he said offhandedly, eyes scanning the interior.

 Sam inches away from the lion who watches him go with the same kind of eyes you’d see on a housecat denied a toy. The lion doesn’t pursue, steps forward and sits next to the door near the lioness. Sam stands next to Dean, finally able to look at and kind of freak out about the other animals too.

 “What is that?” Castiel asks, looking over his shoulder. “There is a box on the floor.”

 Almost moving forward past the lion without a goddamn thought, Dean hesitates before stepping forward around the giant cat. He looks as well and sees the wooden box, narrows his eyes at it. “I have no idea. Sam?”

 “Don’t know anything about a wooden box,” Sam says from the curb, “Don’t make me come over there again, please.”

 Castiel disappears and reappears in the back seat, picking up the box. It’s not very big, about the size of a jewelry box. He opens it and Dean can hear him go, “Ah.”

 The animals stir when Castiel appears out of the car with the box. He rotates it and shows Dean the inside.

 “The hell is that?” he says, looking at it. In the center is a thin sliver of wood no more than an inch long.

 Castiel turned it back, looking down at it. “It is the last piece of the Ark of Noah.”

 Dean’s brows rose. “Wait. That was real? The world flooding and the big boat with all the animals on it?”

 Mouth pursing, Castiel looked back up at Dean. “Yes and no. It was a plan conceived by heaven that never came to pass. The boat was built but nothing happened. I had thought the entire boat had been destroyed.”

 The large male lion moved over and started rubbing his gigantic head against Castiel’s arm. Castiel lifted his hand and pet him, studying the piece of wood. “It’s summoning animals here because within it still holds the potential for a flood.”

 He looked over at Sam and Dean. “If this had remained, a pair of every creature on earth would have come to this location and eventually the rain would have started. It may not seem like it, but it is one of Heaven’s weapons.”

 Dean took another look at the box. “...And it was in my car?”

 Castiel nods his head slightly and from underneath the piece of wood is a tiny slip of paper.

_Found this one, you boys can have it._

_Don’t really fancy the birds and beasties following me about._

_Bal_

 “Of course,” Dean said, teeth clenching as he takes a look at the lioness still draped across his front seats. “Okay, so it’s not in the car anymore. If you take it, will they... leave?”

 Closing and slipping the box into his pocket, Castiel nods slightly. “They should. However, I imagine their appearance in public would cause something of a problem. The sliver more or less teleported them here. If it merely disappears, they will remain and have to take the long way home.”

 Really, as much as he wanted to try avoiding it, Dean knew they couldn’t just abandon a bunch of animals so very not used to the climate of the midwest. “I...Okay. What do we do?”

 “You don’t do anything,” Castiel said evenly, peering at the lions. “Keep an eye on the rest while I take these two home. I’ll be back shortly.”

 He reached and touched the lion and lioness, all three were gone instantly. Dean took a second to get his bearings before peering in the car. “Oh my god,” he says, nose wrinkling. “It smells like cat in here.”

 How do you wash the scent of lion out of a car? And he’d have to vacuum the hell out of it to get the hair and dust out of the seats. “My poor baby,” he mourned, sighing. “Damn Balthazar.”

 It took hours for Castiel to come back, through which Dean had to keep the damn penguins from contained.

 To start off with, they even started to look a little dried out, so he and Sam corralled them into the hotel room and dumped a lot of ice into the bathtub. “What the hell are we in,” Dean grumbled, “Some feel-good family comedy?”

 “Their poop stinks,” Sam said frankly. “That is the worst thing.”

 Neither of them dared bother with the condor. His mate even showed, but both moved to a nearby tree and if they took off, well they couldn’t do much about that. The gazelle, though, were oddly affectionate and took to following Sam around. They nipped at his pockets and followed him into the hotel room. They kneeled beside the bed and fell asleep together.

 They could hear the penguins in the bathtub, making a bunch of screechy-squeaky noises that would probably wind up getting them kicked out.

 “Should we,” Sam said, looking at them. “Feed them? They’ve been here for hours.”

 Dean stared at him from where he had just collapsed onto the couch. “That’d be great, Martin, but I don’t have a snack machine in the back of my car,” he bites, and at Sam’s confused look he grumbles, “Zoboomafoo.”

 “What? Is that even English?”

 “It’s...It’s a name. What do you want, Sam, you wanna make a run to the PetCo to find some Gazelle chow? Penguin snacks?” Dean grumbles, leaning his head back and taking some deep breaths. He wasn’t cut out for dealing with a bunch of smelly animals, some of which stunk up his baby, the bastards.

 He looks up to Sam on his laptop. “Oh no.”

 “Gazelle can eat alfalfa and penguins just need some fresh fish. Easy,” Sam said, looking up at him. “You wanna come?”

 Dean pursed his lips and very slowly and deliberately shook his head. “No. I really don’t.”

 Sam stared for a few seconds before he shrugged and stood up. “I’ll be back,” he said, grabbing the keys.

 Dean let him go, stomach growling and reminding him that he hadn’t eaten anything in ages. He wondered if Sam would bring some Dean-snacks, hoped so. He could text him, but that required getting up. He just wanted to take a little nap, just a little.

 His eyes closed and next thing Dean knows, he’s opening them to a pair of beady little eyes with a beak staring at him. He starts badly at that, making the penguin take a half-step back. “Bad penguin,” he said through his teeth. He sat up a little and stared at it. “You know, you remind me of someone.”

 The penguin tilted its head and Dean’s mouth twisted into a smile before he could stop it. “Yep. That’s...Yeah. Pretty spot on, man.”

 The penguin gave him a look before it turned and waddled away, back toward the bathroom. “Yeah, go get back in the tub before you dry out, Cas,” he called after it, laughing.

 “Dean?”

 Starting even worse than before, Dean looks toward the door and there is Castiel. “Cas,” he said, staring. Castiel is covered in dirt and there are claw marks in his coat, some of which looked a little red. “What the hell...?”

 “It was something of a challenge finding the correct pride. When we did, it was clear the lionesses were upset and rightfully so. Their presiding male was gone and a travelling male had attempted to take over in his absence,” he said, looking around the room. “Where is Sam?”

 “Makin’ a snack run for our temporary roommates,” he said, standing up. “Are you gonna... clean yourself up?”

 Castiel looked down at his clothing. “Ah. Yes,” he said, and it took only a second for all the damage and wounds to disappear from his body. “Thank you. I’ll escort the gazelle home next. I believe their herd will be easier to find... And less angry.”

 The gazelle and Castiel were gone when Sam came back, holding a couple packages of alfalfa hay with pictures of rodents on the label. “Man,” he said, looking at the packages with a twist of a frown. “What a waste.”

 Dean responds instantly: “You are not getting a guinea pig, Sam. You hear me?”

 “I... don’t even want one,” Sam protested, and Dean just gave him a look so he added, “I don’t! They’re... loud!”

 “Yeah. That’s reason number 2. Reason number 1 is _no rodents in my car_ , Sammy,” he said warningly, handing Sam the fish. “Here, go feed Cas and uh, Cas #2.”

 “...You named them?”

 “Spend two minutes with one and you’ll see the resemblance.”

 A couple loud minutes later in the bathroom with the penguins, Sam comes back with an empty packet of fish. He’s actually smiling a little, “They looked like Cas up until I got out the fish. I named the other one Dean, they reminded me of you when you get hungry.”

 Dean frowned at that and looked over at the rest of the bags. “Speaking of. What’d you grab for dinner?”

 His nose wrinkles cos the room smells like freakin’ fish.

 Sam’s gone still. “Oh,” he said, uneasy. “I uh, only went to the pet store.”

 Dean sighed and pulled himself out of the couch. “Damn it, Sammy. Guess I’m walking to the mini-mart,” he said, pulling on his coat. “Keep an eye on the zoo, okay?”

 “You could just drive,” Sam called as he was leaving. “It doesn’t smell that bad.”

 Shaking his head, Dean stepped outside. He glanced at his car a little longingly. Letting Sam take her out was fine enough, but being inside when all he could smell was fur and dirt... Nope. He had to deep clean in the morning, get her good as new again.

 He’s down the road a block when he hears a weird noise. It’s not all that loud, kind of a whoosh thing and an odd grunting noise. He looks behind him and nothing but something overhead makes him look up. A pair of familiar wings fly over him, ominous black outlines in the moonlit sky. “Damn,” he said, staring up at the biggest freakin’ birds he’s ever seen circle him like a tasty treat. “You guys haven’t eaten yet either, huh?”

 He can’t kill them, he knows that much. “Dunno how Cas is planning on getting you two home,” he says, more to himself than the birds. They’re kind of majestic, he guesses, but pretty damn ominous.

 It only takes him a few seconds to realize they’re getting closer. And then Dean was panicked,  flying to conclusions and taking off as fast as he can toward the mini-mart down. And there’s still those tiny huffing noises he can hear from far away and if he tries he can hear the flutter of wings. When he reaches the front door of the mini-mart, he yanks the door open and throws himself inside.

 The half-awake cashier looks up at him, “...You okay, bro?”

 Dean just gives a short nod and calms himself down as he goes for a bunch of their usual odds and ends. A burger he’d have to heat in the microwave before he left, a prepackaged green salad for Sam. At least his crap was fresh. He grabbed a bunch of bottles of water as well, a bag of potato chips and some jerky. For the hell of it, he grabbed some packages of random candies. He was killing time now, hoping the damn birds would be gone by the time he got out.

 By the time Dean was rung up and his burger heated, the birds had disappeared.

 He gets to the hotel room and Sam’s leaning against the headboard of his bed half-awake.

 “Hey,” Sam says as he walks back in. “Castiel was here. He said he was taking the condors back next. It was weird, he had... a-a bruise on his face? Looked like a hoof print.”

 Dean frowned, then slowly nodded. “Well...good, I guess. Damn buzzards tried to swoop in and carry me off for dinner. And hey, speakin’ of, here’s yours.” He tossed the salad at Sam. “You’re welcome.”

 They both eat, the oddity that was their day still not dawning. The penguins squeak and slide in the bathroom every now and then, but when Dean checks on them with a fresh load of ice, they’re sleeping. So naturally, the Winchesters also go to sleep.

In the morning, Castiel is leaning back on the hotel room couch, sleeping. Dean gives him a few minutes, going through his whole morning routine quietly before waking him up.

“Cas,” Dean says quietly, to which the angel’s eyes automatically open.

Castiel sits up straight, body moving to balance on the very end of the seat. “I delivered the penguins to their colony,” he said, and Dean finally noticed that his hair was sticking up messily and his clothes were still a little damp. When Dean got closer, he could smell fish in the air. Sam was right, Castiel had a hoof-shaped bruise on his jaw.

“Dude, did you take a bath with them?” Dean said, nose wrinkling. “You need to shower, man. Or zap yourself clean. Something. Ugh, you got the couch all- And you’ve still got a damn bruise on your face.”

Lifting his hand and touching the bruise, Castiel’s mouth twisted a little. “There were predators stalking the herd when I dropped off the gazelle. I chose to intervene,” he said, looking up at Dean at the precise moment the bruise and mess disappear. 

Dean leans around him and eyes the Cas-shaped wet outline in the couch. “And that? We aren’t getting the deposit back with that gunk in there,” but also before his eyes, the couch is spotless. “How the hell did-”

“Inconsequential,” Castiel says, dismissing the question. His eyes take on that one shade of intensity that Dean’s getting more and more familiar with as of late. “Do you have any idea when Balthazar could have dropped the box into your vehicle?”

Looking Castiel up and down, Dean shrugs. “Your guess is as good as ours, man. Neither of us have noticed a thing. Actually, you were probably the last guy in that  backseat.”

Of course, Castiel chooses to go quiet at that so Dean’s last sentence has to linger in the air. Dean's mouth opens and shuts without anything going through, hands going up to try and punctuate whatever sentence his head was trying to formulate. “I mean- Uh-?” Dean tries, but Castiel interrupts him.

 “It may have been on my person, then, and misplaced at that time. I apologize if that’s the case.”

 Dean’s still staring, tips of his ears kinda warm and wondering if Castiel even caught that euphemism. Hell, of course not, who was he even thinking about. “Uh. It's fine. I just have'ta clean her up some and she'll be right as rain."

 Again, Castiel interrupts. He intrudes on Dean’s space, hand rising. “I will bring you to the nearest car wash, there will be suitable equipment and-”

 “Whoa!” Dean said, pushing his hand against Castiel’s forearm. “No thanks. I can take her later. No rush.”

 Castiel was obviously confused but his arm lowers. “Very well,” he says quietly, studying Dean a moment before taking a step back. “I’ve overstayed. I apologize, Dean. I didn’t mean for this to happen, for you to be inconven-”

 “Cas!” Dean watches Castiel before clapping a hand to his shoulder. He doesn't say anything right away but he gives a half little smile. “Go on, man. You’ve got a war to fight, right?”

 Studying him again, Castiel nods slowly. “Yes. I do.” And he’s gone, nothing but a whisper as he vanishes.

 Dean’s left in the quiet of the motel room for exactly five seconds.

 Sam pushes himself up, squinting over at Dean and announcing his wakefulness by saying: “So, I probably shouldn’t be bringing this back up...”

_Crap._

 “But ‘the last guy in the backseat’?Is there some kinda story there or-?”

 But Dean’s grabbing his coat and boots and heading out to the car without tying them yet. “You want breakfast? I’m gonna go get breakfast.”

 “Dean!”


End file.
